Defense Infrastructure: Environmental Cleanup of Former Naval Facilities
on Vieques

Government Accountability Office
GAO-07-552R
March 26, 2007

This report responds to Congress's request that GAO determine the status
and estimated costs of environmental cleanup on the island of Vieques.
For decades, the U.S. Navy conducted ship-to-shore bombing exercises and
other live-fire training activities on the island, which is located off
the coast of Puerto Rico. The Navy ceased its operations on Vieques in
2003. The Navy has transferred the land to the Municipality of Vieques
and the Puerto Rico Conservation Trust for conservation purposes and to
the Department of the Interior. Although the land has been transferred,
the Navy remains responsible for environmental cleanup. The cleanup is
being carried out under the Defense Environmental Restoration Program
(DERP) that consists of (1) the Installation Restoration Program, which
addresses cleanup of hazardous substances, and (2) the Military
Munitions Response Program, which addresses cleanup of munitions.

The Navy has identified 37 potentially contaminated sites on Vieques
that fall under the installation restoration program. The Navy concluded
that no further action was required for 9 of these sites, and the
remaining 28 sites are in various phases of the cleanup process. The
Navy has allocated about $18.1 million for the investigation and cleanup
of these sites through fiscal year 2006 and estimates that an additional
$15.2 million is needed to complete cleanup.